“My mother refuses to give me food. She tells me the social workers will feed me,” he said.

“On Tuesday she refused to give me food so I stole rice and fish. I ate it in the veld and jumped over the wall and slept in the toilet.”

He said his mother stopped his brother from giving him food.

The boy also said he is not attending school because he is afraid social workers could take him away.

Alfred, who knew the boy’s father from church, said: “When his father fell ill in 2014 he told me to take the boy to his mother’s house. I took him but then I found him sleeping in my toilet.”Alfred said it was not the first time the boy had done this.

“I found him in the same place last week,” he said.

His mother told Daily Sun the boy is a thief and he is afraid of discipline.

“He steals and then he runs away. He once stole his sister’s shoes and R400,” she said.

“I discipline him like I do my other children, but he runs away. Even my 25-year-old daughter knows I am not afraid of slapping her.”

She even assaulted the Dailysun reporter, grabbing his notebook and ripping out his notes.

Thebe Mohatle, spokesman for the Department of Social Development, said they condemn any form of child abuse: “We will send social workers to intervene.”